Common-path spectral interferometry with temporal carrier for highly sensitive surface plasmon resonance sensing

Incorporating the temporal carrier technique with common-path spectral interferometry, we have successfully demonstrated an advanced surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensing system which achieves refractive index resolution (RIR) up to 2 x 10(-8) refractive index unit (RIU) over a wide dynamic range of 3 x 10(-2) RIU. While this is accomplished by optimizing the SPR differential phase sensing conditions with just a layer of gold, we managed to address the spectral phase discontinuity with a novel spectral-temporal phase measurement scheme. As the new optical setup supersedes its Michelson counterpart in term of simplicity, we believe that it is a significant contribution for practical SPR sensing applications. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America